Pan-fried Garlic Butter Prawns

Celebrating Greedy Gourmet’s 9th birthday with a beautiful prawn dish, laced with garlic and butter. Something super simple to make at home!

Just how exactly do you establish the birthday of a blog? Is it when you register its domain name? Installed the software? Or only when you published the first post? For me these steps were a few months apart so I’ve settled on the first post published which happened to be in February 2007.

Wow, so much has changed since that first post. I was heavily pregnant at the time with my first child, Gabriel. My world changed forever when he was born. I still felt like a stranger in a foreign country which I now comfortably call home. We lived in a tiny village where nothing, except gossip, ever happened. Now I happily live in Chelmsford, a proper city in comparison. I was married, now I’m not. I was in my 20’s. Now I’m in my 30’s. Although I was proud of my photos at the time, now I’m even prouder. I’m still me but evolved into an even greater version of myself.

What hasn’t changed is this original recipe. It tasted wonderful back then and it still does. Every month or so when my prawn craving hits I visit the local Chinese shop for a box or two or three of frozen prawns. (Top tip: they are much cheaper than in the supermarkets.) Finding the Chinese shop in Chelmsford proved to be a bit of an adventure and when I finally found it I was aghast that there weren’t any shell-on prawns in stock. I ended up ordering a few kilos and when I swang by to pick up my prize I was dismayed that they were missing their heads.

“Why do you want the heads?,” the Chinese couple asked me. “Because I eat them,” I replied. The irony wasn’t lost on me. Here, people from a country renowned for eating dogs, snakes and other dodgy things from a westerner’s perspective, looked at my practices with incredulity. Whatever. I refuse to be apologetic for loving prawns’ mushy brains, which happened to contain most of the flavour.

A lot of people are put off by the shells and the prospect of getting their hands dirty. Their loss, I say. Just like meat on the bone has much more flavour than their boneless counterparts, the same counts for shell on and off seafood. I’ve bought boiled up prawns from the shop that tasted worse than cardboard. Raw, frozen shelled prawns don’t fare much better in the flavour department either. Do yourself a favour and try the shelled version because you’ll never look back again. As for getting your hands dirty… if you have soap and water close by then there is no issue.

Tiger prawns have this somewhat unappealing blue, grey hue about them. Once they get cooking they turn pink. Before cooking, you will need to devein them – a handy tutorial.

With a sharp knife, score down the back of the shrimp. Remove the thin, digestive tract with the tip of the knife. Repeat with the rest of the prawns. Rinse the prawns under running water and pat dry with paper towels.

Melt the butter, add the oil and generously grind salt in a large frying pan. Add the garlic and prawns, and fry over a high heat, stirring, for 3 – 4 minutes until the prawns are pink. Serve immediately with lemon wedges.

Notes

Serve on a bed of rice, with green salad and a glass of white wine.To serve more people, simply multiply the ingredients accordingly.

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Comments

Hi Michelle
I googled South Africans in Southend and your very interesting website came up! I’ll definitely try the Chinese shop in York Road!
The reason for my search is to find other South Africans / Namibians / Zims to arrange a get-together for the better weather in the new year.
Are you interested in meeting other South Africans?
Kind regards
Ann

I need a prawn-fix again, so I’ll have to visit the Chinese shop soon. You’re right about the menus with their “prawns”. When Americans say “shrimps”, they actually mean prawns though. Quite confusing.

Ag Ja, how did you end up there anyway?? Anyway for you Saffa prawn addicts in London try Sheperds Bush market. They are not farmed and huge!! Just add garlic, chili, corriander and little ginger and butter and then swicth on the rugby!

Hi y’all. I am a Rhodie/South African who misses home and our wonderful food big time. I now live in Houston but can not get garlic butter prawns as you can guess. I am glad to find your recipe and will cetainly try it. Found another one a while back but it was not very good, but yours looks just like we used to get in Salisbury and of course Pretoria, CT and Joburg.
Sleep warm y’all.

This is amazing – I look up a garlic prawn recipe and the first one that comes up is from a local!
I know what you mean about Southend – it’s not the best, but I’ll check out that shop in York Road and who knows what other goodies I’ll find.

If you want a more charming place to buy prawns, make a trip over to Leigh-on-Sea(Old Town)- there’s a Fisherman’s Co-op on Bell Wharf where they sell all sorts of seafood, all freshly caught and not too expensive. There’s also a chip shop nearby to make the trip complete.
I’m an Aussie and need a prawn-fix fairly often too.
Cheers,
Chris

I’m also a saffa who really enjoys sea food and a braai is not complete without decent tiger prawns for me .

For those saffa’s who are london based like me I can highlly recommend the fishmongers in borough market as they have a very good selection of prawns and other sea food at decent prices with practiclly any size of prawn Your looking for right up to indonesian tiger giants . I’ve also found that though pricey the quality of the meat at the ginger pig butchery which is also at that market is exceptionally good and is one of the few places You can get Tbone from 😀

Howzit!!!! I lived in the UK for about 3 years before coming back to sunny South Africa. We went to Mediterranean Fish market yesterday and bought a big box of prawns – the big juicy south african kind! It’s weird to be home this christmas, swimming and braaing and about to put a few prawns onto the skottle!!

Wow, it looks like you are getting a lot of love from fellow South Africans! These prawns look wonderful, and I’m sure they were just as nice as when you were making them 9 years ago. Happy 9th Blogiversary! I recently celebrated 5 years. No post, but a glass of fizz instead. Long may you keep posting such gorgeous recipes. 🙂

Many congratulations on your blog birthday Michelle, here’s to the next 9 yrs and beyond! These prawns are so up my street and I have to admit I have never cooked whole ones but do enjoy eating them when I’m out:-)

Ok you celebrate 9 and I am celebrating 10 … so happy blog birthday to us. I like your style with these gorgeous looking prawns! Michelle keep up the great work and here’s to many more great images and blog birthdays!

Mmmm, garlicky prawns! We were in Plett 2 weeks ago where the Lookout Deck serves them packed tightly into a pint glass as their “pint o’prawns” – fab. Love the look of yours (although I am not a brain-sucker!!) 😉 Happy blogaversary!

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